


Made For You

by flippednique



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Aude, Light!Cielois, Lumber - Freeform, M/M, SebaCiel - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-19 13:57:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1472377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippednique/pseuds/flippednique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You've grown soft." Was all Claude had to say. "When a demon thinks he needs a reason to exist and actually goes to use a contract to achieve such a reason… why Michaelis, I thought I'd never see the day."</p><p>Sebastian sighed a bit disappointed. "Will you never learn Claude? Really?"</p><p>"Don't talk as if you know more than me Sebastian." Claude glared. "Just because you're a millennia older than me does not mean you are better in any other way."</p><p>"I never said I was." Sebastian returned. "I don't understand why you have to bring even between us as a challenge. I am only trying to help you."</p><p>Claude growled and stood in a rare show of slipping from him usually stoic mask. He was just as good as any demon, even Sebastian. That's why what Sebastian can do, Claude can do. </p><p>Even if that's attaining a chosen partner for life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"What will happen to you then Claude?" There was an amused tone to his voice, or as amused as Sebastian's voice could get. It wasn't like he could focus on such things at the moment. He could feel darkness gripping the very core of his being.

But then again wasn't he made of complete darkness? Wasn't he the ultimate epitome? Made from hatred that developed over the years, twisting and forming into him, a demon that had long prowled the earth for something.

What was that something?

 _"_ You are getting lonely Faustus." Sebastian hummed as he turned away from the unmoving and clearly non-caring demon. "Such a waste."

Then his vile presence was gone. Claude could no longer feel it and he almost smiled, almost. He could listen to his thoughts now without having to keep on his guard. Not that he thought Michaelis would be able to hurt him should the other really try. Not even in this state of nothingness would Claude let himself fall.

Partly because he felt incomplete. There really was something he was missing, and sometimes he wished he knew what that was. Now was one of those times.

Centuries of playing with these pitiful… human had driven Claude to using them, if not to his advantage, then for his entertainment. They were quite funny when riled up but even more amusing when they were terrified. It wasn't too hard. A little touch here, a whisper of a breath there.

**"P-Please! Please don't k-kill me!"**

Their screams were exhilarating and it was used to be what made Claude feel alive. Now though, he had no business tormenting his play things. He wanted to be alone and he wanted the time to think.

Think. Think. Think.

What was that something?

* * *

_"… hear me?"_

What's this?

_"… Trancy! I call you!"_

Silly humans were calling for him.

_"Come… Trancy…"_

If they insisted.

_"I call you."_ _  
_

* * *

Ciel looked out to the grounds although there really wasn't much to see. It was raining in the sense that he couldn't at all make out what he was supposed to be looking at. There were blurs yes, but was it a bush he was staring at or just something particularly green.

The Academy had been his home for a while now, his schooling starting at the age of seven. His parents thought that this and only this institution would be good enough to accommodate the heir of the Phantomhive family.

Of course Ciel didn't complain. He didn't really want to. It would have been nicer to be closer to his parents but this was what they wanted. 'The future of their business rested on his shoulders and when the time came he would take over everything'.

Ciel worried on his bottom lip for a moment. What if he didn't want to take over everything? They had never asked, simply assumed that every child would want to become the next holder.

Of course, he knew next to nothing about anything else but becoming the next Earl. Maybe that's why he never complained and simply accepted everything that he's been put through.

Still… he didn't have to like it.

Life in The Academy wasn't particularly exciting as everything had a certain order and all students followed a certain routine. There was probably only one student who would dare to defy the Academy's regulations and for that Ciel sort of envied Alois.

Alois Trancy… Alois was an anomaly. An enigma. A completely incomprehensible classmate of his that has done nothing but break free of the chains that bound them. By chains, Ciel thought of all the responsibilities and expectations that were draped over his shoulders, weighing him down and keeping him from rising up.

For some reason, Alois easily shrugged himself out of those chains, with complete ease and the slipperiness of a snake. Maybe that was why Alois was as he was. Manipulative, foolhardy, impulsive, and oh-so-utterly devious. Able to con almost just anyone into getting his way.

Of course, Alois also managed to just about make Ciel's skin crawl at every possible moment. The blonde knew nothing about boundaries (both personal and literal). He liked teasing Ciel to his wits end. Ciel did not personally know Alois but he was someone that the Phantomhive heir could deal with. Alois didn't back down when he found out just who Ciel was, in fact, the boy laughed and said that they would be having fun.

 _"The Phantomhive heir is never one to be flustered._ " Alois' had once told him.  _"I am simply enjoying the fact that I can make you blush so prettily Ci-el~!"_

… and there were times that Ciel was just absolutely terrified of what Alois was capable of. Not that he'd ever admit that to anyone other than himself.

Ciel wasn't stupid, he knew that showing weaknesses was like throwing yourself into the fire. And he was not stupid that he would lie to himself. Admitting he knew that Ciel was a somewhat talented individual, he never made it seem like he was the least bit intimidated with what he'd seen the Trancy heir do.

Like stand up to the one teacher that had taught them nothing and though the blonde had been slapped in the face for his defiance, Alois had refused to remain in his class to waste his hours when he, as the Trancy heir, needed to learn everything to be at his best.

Maybe he had a sort of… grudging respect for Alois Trancy but that didn't mean that he could stand him.

There was a slam of hands on his desk and a shadow fell over his face, Ciel caught fiercely glaring blue eyes in front of him and he inwardly sighed. "Ciel! You've been staring at me like I'm not here."

"Am I?" Ciel asked as he began to pack up his things.

Alois did not like being brushed off and reached out a hand to tug at Ciel's books. "I am talking to you!"

"I am busy." Ciel deadpanned and smacked the blonde's hands away.

Alois let go easy enough but continued to stare at Ciel as if he wanted to do something… very bad. To avoid that Ciel quickly held up a finger. "What is it that you want from me Alois?"

"Oh fine." Alois gestured to himself. "Does anything seem different about me?"

Ciel made a show of looking the blonde up and down before he shook his head. "No. Still as irritating and annoying as ever."

"Really?" Alois cried in absolute delight before he reigned himself and smiled sweetly at Ciel. "Thanks for that. I'm gonna go now but I'll see you later."

"Where are you going?" Ciel asked though he didn't really care.

"Room." Alois answered before he shuffled along. "Stop by and check on me so I won't be late for class will you?"

* * *

Maybe it was his fault. Had he been born with some deficiency? He wondered where this mark suddenly came from. He was sure that there hadn't been a pentagram on his tongue this morning when he woke up. But after he escaped Maths and vacated to his shared room, Alois had felt his tongue go numb and had no idea why.

The face that stared back at him was completely the same one he had woken up with. But when he stuck his tongue out and it seemed like it had been branded with a hot iron he shuddered to think what had happened. As far as he was concerned this wasn't normal. Five minutes into staring at it though and it had suddenly disappeared, leaving Alois to wonder whether or not he'd just imagined it all.

Alois now ogled his reflection, blue eyes staring straight ahead. What he saw was a boy but what he wanted to see was a man. The man that his father expected him to be even though as hard as he tried he just could not become. The coming of age for the young Trancy heir was most important. His family would be throwing a party in his honor with a feast big enough to feed the fifty people or so on his mother's guest list in no less than two weeks.

It was a list that had not a single name that he was familiar with.

Alois almost wished he could talk to his mother and request to give his opinion on a few friends attending his party had they not just had another one of their arguments. Let it be said that he had inherited his mother's wicked silver tongue as well as his father's brash temper. Anger festered and boiled deep in Alois' heart for only a short time before he lashed out at anyone making his life difficult.

It was something he wanted to change, but couldn't find enough time or effort to do so.

"Stare any harder and the mirror will crack." Ciel's voice was enough to make Alois jump on any day. But on this particular one he found himself turning to stare at the Phantomhive heir instead. Now there was a man that his father would be proud off. Talented, quick-witted, responsible, and emotionally mature for their age of sixteen. The fact that Ciel was a month younger than him didn't help things, in fact it just made Alois a little more depressed.

"I am not having a good day." Alois grumbled but walked away from the mirror to shuffle into the room they had been sharing for the past six years. The Academy had been their temporary homes since they were eleven and deemed old enough to handle boarding school. It was much a coincidence that he and Ciel got roomed together although it was understood that they would be in the same school.

Nothing but the best thing that money can buy for them, no sir.

Alois threw himself into his bed, smothering his face into a pillow. He knew that he had no right to complain, maybe. He had everything and he meant that. Food, shelter, clothing. All of man's basic necessities. He felt that he was lacking something though, not a necessity but a fancy, a craving.

Desire was a human emotion that his parents have done everything to pacify, still Alois felt that he was quiet empty. Even with the diamond necklace hanging from his neck or the people that were there to serve him hand and foot he knew something was not quite there.

"Sulking does not become you Alois." Ciel's voice called to him. "I'd think you'd already know that since it's very rare for me to see you this way."

Alois sighed but turned over, eyes now staring at the white colored ceiling. "Today's just not my day is all."

"Care to tell me what's wrong?" Ciel asked in a rare act of concern. True enough that you couldn't quite call them friends, Ciel knew Alois better than anybody else and the same went for the other. What did you expect in a world filled with idiots? Birds of the same feather would flock together especially in such tight quarters as The Academy.

Alois beamed at the show though and took in a deep breath. "Not really. Thanks for asking though, I never knew you actually cared."

"Oh I don't." Ciel hummed offhandedly as he took hold of his books. "It's just that break isn't ending for another twenty minutes and I thought I'd waste some time on you."

"I'm touched." Alois hissed with venom before he stood up and attempted to pat down his blonde hair. "Twenty minutes you say? Think I can come up with a good enough excuse so that I can skip today?"

Ciel eyed him for a moment before he snorted. "Don't even try it Trancy. It's the last class of the day."

"Fine." Alois huffed and got up, grabbing his vest and slipping it on. The tie around his neck was undone but he'd get to that later. For now, he concentrated on sharing what he'd learned earlier this morning that had him doubting his self-esteem yet again. "I heard that we have a guest coming to The Academy."

"I heard about that too." Ciel closed the door behind them as they walked to their last class of the day. The journey was done swiftly as they needed to get there before anybody else. Baking was not an art either one wanted to perfect (there were people for that) but if they wanted nothing but stellar grades then they had to be punctual when they were having their three hour lecture. "Something about an inadequate number of students passing the board exams towards the professions they wished to pursue."

"Tough." Alois huffed. "That's not the school's fault. It's theirs for not doing a good enough job. Bloody twats they are for thinking that they should blame other people for their incompetent failures."

Ciel nodded in agreement and pushed the hair that covered his face but his nose wrinkled delicately. "There's no need to swear Alois."

"Oh be quiet Phantomhive." Alois murmured as they turned a corner into the class building. "Excuses are nothing but excuses. If you want something and you really know that you want that something you'll do everything that you can to attain it. No 'buts', no 'ifs', no 'because of this' or 'because of that'. Heck those words should never even be in your vocabulary. I call them twats because I have no other word to call them. That's a lie though, they could also be stupid and thick ingrates that have no ambition and no grasp of what life truly is."

It looked like the blonde had more to say even as he entered the door to their classroom, his gaze directed over his shoulder at Ciel but the rather pointed cough had him shutting his mouth and stilling in place. Ciel nearly slammed into Alois and was about to ask what was wrong when he saw that the classroom was empty save for Professor Michaelis and an unfamiliar face.

Alois knew when the time came to appreciate an attractive male. His knees went soft and weak as he stared at Professor Michaelis' guest. If it wasn't for the rather hard jab into his spine he would have further embarrassed himself by drooling. Fortunately, Ciel knew him well enough to grab his attention so that he straightened up, cleared his throat and offered a calm expression. "Good afternoon Sir. I hope we aren't interrupting."

Now in all truth and honesty, Alois hated Sebastian Michaelis. The man was a fine tutor and instructor and Alois admitted that no one could teach baking to a bunch of stubborn teenagers with such success like he could but that was as far as it was going to get. Sebastian loved to make his life miserable by pairing him up with the average nobody and therefore ensuring that should Alois want a good grade he'd have to do nearly all of the work. He also had some serious favoritism involving Ciel as his roommate would always get away with minor mistakes and the people paired up with him were rather competent and grade conscious.

Alois loathed Sebastian Michaelis down to his very core but for only this one moment, he would pretend to like him. For the sake of meeting this beautiful stranger who looked like someone straight out of a vampire movie. And oh how Alois liked them tall, dark, and handsome.

"Mr. Trancy and Mr. Phantomhive. You're a little early although I expected nothing less." Sebastian stood from his desk and beckoned his students in. He gestured to his companion. "This is Claude Faustus."

"How do you do?" Alois felt a shiver travel down his spine as he sat down on his regular seat.  _What a voice._  "If I am not mistaken then you must be who Sebastian was telling me about. You've both got quite a reputation."

"All good things I hope." Ciel cut in when it seemed like Alois was still mulling over Mr. Faustus voice. He couldn't deny that it had a very nice appeal. Inwardly he hoped Alois wouldn't do anything stupid. He looked at Sebastian who was smiling.  _Not good._ "Professor Michaelis has a habit of exaggerating things. Perhaps he has told you things that may or may not be true."

"Not at all." Claude returned. "Sebastian and I have been good friends for a few years now Mr. Phantomhive and I am quite familiar with how his stories can be. There's no need to call him a liar."

"I didn't." Ciel returned stiffly, his entire body tensing.

Alois noticed that, enough that he snapped out of his small funk and jumped into the conversation. If Ciel hated anything it was when people seemed to be putting words in his mouth. "What brings you to The Academy Sir Faustus?"

"A job." Claude answered, pushing back his slightly dropping spectacles. "I've taken the liberty of checking the list and it seems should I accept The Academy's offer Mr. Phantomhive will be in my class for Classic Literature. What say you to a bit of Shakespeare this term?"

"I say we've been through them all way back when we were in our third year." Ciel returned with missing a beat. "Of course I wouldn't mind running through them again Sir Faustus. Perhaps you can make it more interesting for us students who failed to see the reason for such petty stories?"

"Petty?" Claude repeated. "You think stories such as  _Romeo and Juliet_  and  _A Midsummer Night's Dream_  petty?"

Ciel nodded quiet determinedly. "Someone pretty much dies in the end and for some reason there will be magic involved. If you're going to write a story you may as well make it realistic."

"Oh come now." Claude said a gleam in his eyes. "You do not believe in magic?"

"No." Ciel deadpanned. He shut his mouth after that and met the man's stare head on. He did not find a need to continue such a conversation if their topic was to be about something as juvenile as magic.

Alois, however, had a different view on that and let out an excited gasp. "I believe in magic! When I was younger and didn't study in the Academy I met a fairy."

"No you didn't." Ciel cut off, tired of hearing Alois repeat such an implausible story. "You were delirious from a high fever and dreamt up all of that."

Alois glared at the other boy. "You weren't there Ciel. If you were you'd know that Hannah was real and magic does exist! How would you explain such a quick recovery?"

"Oh I don't know," Ciel returned mockingly. "good medicine maybe?"

"You say was." Sebastian piped in. "Why is that in the past tense Mr. Trancy?"

Alois looked at Sebastian in surprise, a suspicious look coming into his eyes. "My parents removed the part of the gardens that I saw her in, in order to build new stables. She never came back to visit me once I was better but my brother got sick when the stables were almost finished. I think she was mad and took it out on Luka, but he's better now."

"I see." Sebastian smiled.

Ciel from the side scoffed and shook his head. "I refuse to believe what I am seeing and hearing. Why are you indulging such childish nonsense?"

"It is not nonsense!" Alois argued. "Just because you have no imagination and no heart to see fairies doesn't mean they aren't real!"

"And here I thought we've established that fairies truly aren't real." Ciel mumbled exasperatedly looking away from the heated stare in Alois' eyes. Not wanting to fight in front of Professor Michaelis and his guest no matter how infuriating the man was, Ciel opted to back down and simply let Alois and Mr. Faustus continue their conversation on magic.

Or they would have had their other classmates not poured into the room and into their seats. Sebastian had looked up in surprise before he let Ciel and Alois move back to their seats and prepared the students for class. He introduced Mr. Faustus who also took some of the subject time to announce that he would be their Classic Literature professor as soon as next week.

"I thought he was still considering it?" Alois mumbled to Ciel a little excitedly.

Ciel rolled his eyes and kept them on his notes after. "Maybe something pushed him into saying yes. Say a blonde brat who shares his idiotic views on the supernatural maybe?"

"You need to lighten up a little Ciel." Alois mumbled though he was practically beaming at the thought of being the reason why Sir Faustus decided on staying at The Academy. "I worry about you sometimes. A closed mind will keep you cooped off from the rest of the world."

"And a too open mind will send you flying to heaven despite your time." Ciel quipped. He glanced up at the clock and tuck his notes away.

"Hmph." Alois huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. His notes had already been finished and stowed away leaving his desk clear for some serious moping. "You're a lost cause Ciel, don't tell people I didn't try to convert you. It wouldn't kill you to smile."

"I don't know how to smile." Ciel admitted. "I don't have any reasons to."

"Tch, pessimist."

"More like realist." Ciel let out a deep breath when the bell rang and some students hurried to finish their notes while others made bee-lines for the door. He wondered what they'd be served during dinner or if it would be worth asking Alois to eat outside tonight. Leaving The Academy was bad but if there were two of them he found it hard to be refused.

It was as Ciel was pondering this that he felt a prickling sensation and a hand immediately flew up to rub at his right eye. That's odd. It had been a while since he had any problems with his eye. Years since the last time it had itched this way.

Alois stood up when the bell had rang but didn't hurry, his forehead crumpling when he saw that Ciel was not moving towards the door. "Something wrong?"

"No." Ciel mumbled and made his way out the door. His thoughts now circling on getting out of there. "I'm just tired."

Alois said nothing and simply followed Ciel out of the door and back to their room leaving the two professors in the room.

* * *

Sebastian had seen what had happened and he did not miss the smirk that Claude actually sent his way. He returned the expression with a small smile of his own. "It seems that you and I will be meeting more often the next few centuries."

"So you plan on keeping him then?" Claude wondered.

Sebastian met the question with a raised eyebrow. "Will you not be doing the same? After all, the wait should be enough reason to keep him by your side, for a couple millennia at least."

"Maybe." Claude hummed and conjured a glass filled with what Sebastian recognized with its dark red color.

"Whose is that?" Sebastian wondered as he conjured his own glass, but this one empty.

Claude tipped his own glass over the other's, transferring at least half of its content. "It's his of course. I need to sample just what Trancy has in store for me."

Sebastian scowled but took a sip nonetheless. "It's good. Not like his but I suppose it will do."

"I remember what his blood tasted like." Claude murmured. "Is it still as potent as it once was?"

"More so." Sebastian chuckled. "Years of repression over his emotions has turned him bitter although he hides it well. Your host is quite a bad influence on him, slowly feeding him and acting as his bright side of every occasion."

"You say that and it makes me think that I'll starve to death with him." Claude blew out a breath and swirled the red liquid, enjoying the sloshing sound. "His blood is tainted though, I like it."

"Alois is just your amount of crazy, Claude." Sebastian chuckled. "I can assure you that."

"Perhaps." Claude nodded and continued to sip his drink, savoring the metallic taste. "I'll just have to get to know him."

"You're cutting it a little too closely though." Sebastian noted. "Two weeks?"

"We can't all be as dedicated as you Sebastian." Claude smirked. "You've been tailing Ciel for what now, twelve years?"

"I'm just making sure it's him." Sebastian shrugged. "Are you sure that it's Alois?"

Claude swigged what remained of his drink and made a show of licking his lips clean. "Very."

"I pity Alois." Sebastian sighed and leaned back against his chair. "It's just his blood but you're going crazy."

"Feeling quite fanatical actually."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How's that then? XD Finally got to it and wrote a BB fic! My good friend jellydonut16 introduced me to our four wonderful boys and I just fell in love with each and every one of them. I don't know if you can tell yet but I sort of favor Alois.
> 
> Expect much Alois praising in this fic because I love him and he needs the love. As the summary states it's Aude (Alois and Claude) and Sebaciel. I don't know if Aude is an actual pairing but I just named them something while I was writing the summary.
> 
> It's going to be a slow paced story or so I think. I'd love to hear your thoughts though! Let's see how far we can take this story till we reach 'the end'.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You've grown soft." Was all Claude had to say. "When a demon thinks he needs a reason to exist and actually goes to use a contract to achieve such a reason… why Michaelis, I thought I'd never see the day."
> 
> Sebastian sighed a bit disappointed. "Will you never learn Claude? Really?"
> 
> "Don't talk as if you know more than me Sebastian." Claude glared. "Just because you're a millennia older than me does not mean you are better in any other way."
> 
> "I never said I was." Sebastian returned. "I don't understand why you have to bring even between us as a challenge. I am only trying to help you."
> 
> Claude growled and stood in a rare show of slipping from him usually stoic mask. He was just as good as any demon, even Sebastian. That's why what Sebastian can do, Claude can do.
> 
> Even if that's attaining a chosen partner for life.

For a moment Alois wished he had the ability to will himself to sleep. Counting sheep did not work as he couldn't help but imagine said sheep taking form of Ciel's head which was what he liked to doodle when he was bored in class and therefore was not helping him lose consciousness at all.

He was thinking too much. Said thoughts revolved on one too many things and he was sure he'd be a walking zombie tomorrow which considering he had PE in the morning made Alois whimper in dismay at the thought of laps around the quad. Of course he did said whimpering silently as the other resident of the room was fast asleep.

Alois wished he could get up and wake Ciel up because nobody liked being up at night alone but he knew that the bluenette had Science for his first period and Physics with a half-there-brain was never good for anyone even  _the_ Ciel Phantomhive. Mr. Roberts as their professor never worked either.

_Professor_ … hmm.

That was another thing that was keeping Alois up. Professor Claude Faustus had been whizzing through his mind all evening even through dinner. He'd played with his pasta and ate it under Ciel's wandering gaze as he didn't want to be asked any questions but he mostly thought of the spectacled teacher to the point he'd almost answered one of Ciel's questions with ' _gorgeous topaz colored eyes'_ which he'd previously been fantasizing about.

The man was the epitome of  _fine_ if Alois had anything to say about it. For that matter he actually had a whole _lot_ to say about Claude Faustus. For one thing that conversation about magic. It was a miracle that such a subject was ever brought up but to think that someone hadn't made fun of his belief in the supernatural… it made Alois sigh really  _giddily_  which he would never admit to mind. He had his pride too.

But Professor Faustus hadn't made fun of him, in fact he had defended him against Ciel's slurs on the topic and too bad for the Phantomhive boy but it seemed the even Professor Michaelis was interested in magic if the question on Hannah was anything to go by. Or maybe he just had a thing on picking up whenever Alois disliked talking about a particular topic.

Then there was that pentagram he'd found… on his tongue.

Alois was a very open minded person as Ciel had noted earlier today and granted he'd thought once that he would get a tattoo someday, the area he wasn't sure yet and what the tattoo would look like he was still pondering. However this thought had only come to him  _once_ (back when he was a willy-nilly first year) which was why he had been more than a little surprised to find a  _pentagram on his tongue_.

How did that get there? Where did it come from?Who put it there? How was he going to get it out? Alois had had a sheer panic attack right before the silly little symbol disappeared from his tongue altogether and he wondered if he'd managed to swallow it and made it go away.

But that was absurd.

_'As absurd as fairies then? As absurd as magic?'_ A simply nasty voice cried mockingly in his head. Alois huffed in frustration as he listened to that voice. It was a result of too little sleep and a night of over thinking. There were also times that he wished he could make his brain shut up or better yet turn it off.

Sometimes he felt he wasn't too right up there, almost as if he wasn't alone. There were moments where he actually did things without realizing it. His parents had said it was something close to sleep walking but Luka had once said that he'd seen him standing in front of a mirror and just staring.

His younger brother had tried to talk to him, asked what was wrong, and possibly get him back to bed but all Alois did was  _stare._ Luka had also said that there had been a look on his face that had adequately freaked him, the gleaming in his eyes not something he had been familiar with at all. His little brother had took tail and ran to find their mother who came into the room just in time to see Alois faint dead to the floor.

When he had woken up he found himself in his mother's arms and Luka in his bed as well. She had explained what had happened and asked if he were all right. Of course he couldn't remember it happen and he didn't feel at all different. His mother took his word for it and simply decreed it as an episode of sleep walking and left it at that.

As far as Alois knew it had never happened again. If it did then his unconscious body simply gawked and ogled itself away from the prying eyes of an audience. Heaven forbid he did it in front of Ciel.

For Alois, being asleep was a time of being vulnerable. You were so blissfully gone from your state of waking that you had no idea what was going around you. It was similar to being in a room with no light, the absence making everything dark and therefore making you blind. He didn't like it, any of it, one bit.

The story that Ciel had told him about suffering through sleep paralysis had scared nearly twenty years off of his life and he hoped against everything that he would never have to experience it.

Dreaming was one thing but nightmares were a whole lot different. He liked the former. He feared the latter. Lucid dreams were somewhat better than plain old boring sleep but he'd take dreamless over Ciel's terrifying experience. Being trapped in a cage was bad for anyone, being trapped in a situation made you want to get out of it in any way you can, being trapped in your own body… how does one escape that?

Alois was determined to not let anyone or anything cage him, he was a free spirit and he wanted to keep it that way. Nobody would own him and nobody would keep him from doing anything he wanted to. He would not be trapped.

That said, the blonde looked away from his ceiling to the window by his bed. The moon was out and he could see some of the trees that littered the campus. It looked cold outside… that made him glad he was inside, under the covers, with his head on a soft pillow. He wasn't sure just how much time had passed but he was sure he was going to regret over thinking things tomorrow.

* * *

The moment Alois dropped into sleep, Ciel sat up and nearly ran to the bathroom. His eye had been bothering him for a while now since he'd gotten ready for bed but he didn't want to disturb his roommate as Ciel could sense Alois' growing anxiety. It may not have been obvious to the blonde but something was definitely bothering him to the point that he was not able to go to sleep.

For someone like Alois who usually dropped like a light that was worrying and maybe Ciel would hint at it tomorrow. For now he stared at the bathroom mirror, more specifically at his right eye which was now red. He could hardly see the blue and for that he was worried.

His mother and father had told him to call them when this happened but seeing as it was so late in the evening Ciel debated over disturbing his parents or waiting to see if it would fade away. Of course that put his mind at unease. He would not be able to concentrate at all in class if he didn't do anything about it.

His grades was the ultimate factor that had him going back out to the bedroom and searching for his phone before moving his way back to the bathroom which was the only source of light. As he looked for his phone, Ciel had taken a moment to stare at Alois' unmoving form and when he stared he  _stared_.

There had been someone there… Ciel was sure he'd seen someone sitting on the bed by Alois' head. Or maybe it was the eye thing and he was seeing shadows. With more vigor, Ciel closed the bathroom door behind him and sifted through the contacts. It took a good minute for him to gain the courage to press call since he really didn't want to bother his parents who had busy schedules tomorrow morning for sure.

" _What's wrong Ciel?"_ He was surprised that his father answered on the first ring. It took him a few seconds to regain his faculties and to whisper quietly into his phone.

"My eye's hurting. I'm sorry, I know it's late." He looked at his reflection again and winced when he could see that the redness had spread. "I can't talk very loudly because Alois is asleep but it's itching real bad and I want it to stop. I can't sleep."

_"It's all right."_ His father had replied and there had been some shuffling of papers. Ciel wondered if his father was up on a new toy. " _When did it start bothering you Ciel? I hope you didn't wait too long before calling us."_

"Just before dinner time today." Ciel confessed. "I was gonna wait it out actually cause it wasn't too bad but now it's getting worse."

_"That's what you get for not saying anything sooner."_ There was a reproaching sigh at the end of that. " _It's a bit late for your mother or I to make a trip over there. I'm not sure that guards will let us in."_

Ciel's grip on the phone tightened. "Oh no. I don't want you guys to come over, I just… I know you're both busy but I just want to ask what I should do."

" _Nonsense."_ His father scolded with an air of them having this conversation more than once before. " _You are our son Ciel, do not think that you're being a bother. If anything it's this toy that's being a bother. It won't work."_

Ciel smiled at that. "Maybe it doesn't want to be built?"

" _Well it's its loss."_ His father chuckled. " _Do you still have any of the eye drops your Aunt prescribed you?"_

Ciel tucked the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he riffled through the medicine cabinet. He managed to pry one of the tiny eye drop bottles from the very back where he'd hidden them in hopes of Alois never finding them. He eyed them warily, checking the expiration date. "I have one here but I'm not sure if they're still good. They've been here a while."

" _Hmm. Don't chance it then. I'll be there tomorrow with your mother and she'll have a look at you. If she can't fix things with her motherly touch then we'll go to your aunt but only then."_ There was a brief pause. " _I hope you're all right Ciel. I love you very much."_

In a moment of sincerity Ciel gripped the phone tightly in his hand. "I love you too father."

" _I know_." He could feel warmth flowing through him from the call. Ciel was glad that he'd called his father even if it did rob him of the chances of falling asleep.

"Okay." He breathed. "I'm gonna go now so you can get back to your toy."

" _All right. Get some sleep Ciel. We'll see you in the morning."_

"Goodnight." He ended then hanged up. Minutes passed but all Ciel did was take deep breaths in hopes of calming himself down. There was no use worrying over his eye now since his parents would soon have a look at it. It was just now the matter of waiting for morning to come so he could ba taken cared off.

That short talk made him feel much better than his half-anxious half-dazed condition. The state of his very much sore looking eye was eating up the ease his father had placed over him and he quickly moved away from the mirror and back into the room.

There he took a deep breath and chanced a look at the clock that stood on the low table between his and Alois' bed. It said that it was four in the morning. Ciel debated getting into bed and actually getting some proper sleep but he knew it wouldn't do any good if he was supposed to get up two hours later.

Looking at Alois' bed where the blonde was now haphazardly strewn all over it with the covers tangled and all he was sure that neither he nor the blonde would be going to class later that day and succumbed to the tiredness that now washed over him. Head on the pillow and lying on his side, Ciel stared out the window beside Alois' bed and just waited to be claimed by slumber.

When it came, it's dark tendrils drew him to unconsciousness very slowly, the tugs on his brain gently wooing him to lower his eyes, to close them and welcome the darkness so that he could finally get some rest. His breathing evened out eventually and his body grew lax, deflating visibly over the mattress. Dreams didn't come to Ciel but it felt like no less than a second passed when his body woke up and he was sitting up in bed his entire being painstakingly aware of the people in the room.

His mother was staring at him with a rather stern look on her face and his father was looking at him quite apologetically. Last night's conversation hadn't been hidden it seemed.

"I'm fine mother." Ciel had all but blurted out. Now his mother was a very beautiful woman but she also had brains. The disapproving look on her face showed Ciel that she was now using them.

"You are most certainly not." She walked up to his bed and took down the bag hanging from her shoulder, producing a small flashlight and what he was sure was a camera. She fiddled with these as she talked. "We wouldn't be here if you were Ciel and since we both know that you aren't really all right can I ask what stopped you from calling last night at a decent hour so that we could take care of you better instead of at three in the morning therefore scaring your father half to death that something is the matter with you?"

Ciel could feel his cheeks flush with shame. He looked away from his mother's face and gripped the bed covers tightly. "I didn't want to bother you mother. It was just irritating me is all."

"I am your  _mother_." She said. "It's my job to worry. Now look here so we can see what's wrong."

Ciel sat still as her mother did was she did best, and that was make sure he was okay. There had been a lot of poking and prodding on his person which didn't make sense because wasn't it his  _eye_ that was bothering him before she took snapshots of his eye and frowned at the camera.

"It says your eye is perfectly fine." She huffed and took another picture and was upset at the same results.

Ciel on the other hand was a little confused. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"No." She replied fiddling with the camera. "It means that whatever is making your eye red isn't showing up on the scans. It means I don't know what I'm dealing with and I don't know how to make you feel better."

Ciel gulped inwardly. Well that wasn't good.

* * *

When the door slammed shut, Alois' body met quite intimately with the carpets of their bedroom floor. Whatever or whoever it was that had done that banging was in for a whole world of pain. Once he got up that is but these plush carpets were so nice and warm that he was contemplating just staying there until he damn well felt like getting up.

He was fifty percent sure that it had been Ciel that banged their door since it would be a way for the bluenette to wake him up. But there was also the fact that judging from the light flooding the room it had to be somewhere around midday and there would be no reason for the other boy to be in their room unless he decided to ditch class today as well.

Alois' mind drifted at the point as he willingly pushed himself back to oblivion. He wanted to go back to sleep because sleep was nice. Dreamless or not, sleep was something he would never not craved. He didn't wanna say it was  _peaceful_  for the sake that he did not want to sleep forever. Right now though…  _sleep_.

_Or maybe not_.

The knocks on the door drew Alois to turning away from it, his entire being refusing to get up just to answer. They would get tired of it and go away eventually or if they were smart they'd realize that it's school hours and since Alois was just as good of a boy as everybody else then he would be in class with the rest of the school population.

But the knocking… did. Not. Stop. It wasn't an insistent knocking, however after every time Alois was content enough that he was about to fall back to sleep the knocking would start up again! And it wasn't an obnoxious knocking either. Just three taps, quite polite but  _insanely_  irritating.

"All right!" Alois all but shrieked (not in a girly voice mind, just a very irritated one) before he flung himself at the door and threw it wide open regardless of whoever might be standing behind it. The blonde was out for blood and he would  _kill the man, woman, or thing that dared drag him away from-. "_ Professor Faustus!"

Then of course there's that.

"Mr. Trancy." The man was smiling, an eyebrow raised above his rectangle spectacles. The expression drew Alois to the conclusion that he looked like he'd just scrambled out of bed, which he just did but the other man didn't need to know that all Alois did was sleep.

In an act of attempted subtlety, Alois straightened his pajama top hoping to rid it of the wrinkles it now possessed and wished that he'd at least done something to flatten his bed hair before he'd thrown the door open.

Claude didn't miss what the blonde was doing and decided not to say anything about. Instead he asked, "May I come in?"

The question surprised Alois but he stepped away from the door anyways. "I'm afraid that you've caught me unprepared for guests. Please excuse the mess of things."

"You students are awfully busy, it's quite understandable." Claude hummed as he looked around the room. Alois winced when the man's eyes landed on his bed and he could admit that he'd let out a very relieved sigh when he didn't hear anything about it. When Claude finished looking his fill, he turned to Alois again. "I just dropped by to ask you why you were absent from class. Sebastian seems to be wondering why he's lost two of his students. I trust Phantomhive is all right?"

Alois' eyebrows drew together at that. The reason that Claude was visiting,  _in his room in the middle of the bloody day_ was because Sebastian was wondering about him being absent from class? And Ciel wasn't attending either? "Well… he didn't say anything to me. He wasn't here when I woke up."

"When was that exactly?" Claude asked teasingly as he reached a hand out and patted Alois' blonde tufts down. He wasn't too surprised when they shot back up, in fact he chuckled lightly and seemed to be enjoying the embarrassed flush filling in the blonde's cheeks.

"I wasn't sleeping very well." Alois deadpanned as he showed that he did  _not_ appreciate the other man's attentions as well as his teasing. He moved away from Claude before pulling a chair away from one of the study table's in the room and offered it to him.

"Oh?" Claude smiled as he took the seat. "Any reason why that's so?"

"Just…" Alois chose his words carefully. "Just over thinking things."

Claude made a show of pushing his glasses up and making himself comfortable. "Would you like to talk about it?"

"I thought you were a teacher not a therapist." Alois chided but he ran a hand through his hair in slight defeat. Bottling things up did bad things to you… and if anything this was the man who believed in  _magic_ and would surely not make fun of anything he had to say now. "I know it's crazy but I've been seeing weird things lately."

"Weird?" Claude echoed.

Alois nodded. "Yeah, yesterday around the afternoon I saw this weird seal on my tongue. It wasn't there when I woke up but I was just…"

" _Over thinking things?"_

Alois chuckled. "Maybe. I don't know. It's crazy and I was just probably seeing things right? I mean, symbols don't just pop out of nowhere, right?"

Claude looked at the nervous face in front of him and formulated an answer. "That depends. What exactly did you see?"

"Well," Alois' forehead crumpled. "I'm sure it was… it was a pentagram. Another thing why I'm slightly bothered because it's supposedly a bad symbol right? So why would it show up on my tongue of all places!"

"Why indeed?" Claude stood up, surprising Alois as he was getting into their conversation. He was shocked into silence when the man stood right in front of him and took his chin in cupped hands and fingers brushed over his lips. Alois could feel his entire body freezing with the exception of his face which was now very, very hot. "May I see?"

Not quite able to do anything else, Alois carefully stuck his tongue out but just barely the tip. When Claude made a soft noise at his actions he ducked his head, or at least tried to since Claude still gripped his chin. The grip tightened even as he attempted to look away.

"Come now Alois." Claude's low voice sent shivers moving down Alois' spine and almost as if in a trance, he stuck his tongue out further more. Nothing happened after that except for topaz colored eyes staring at his exposed appendage.

Then there was  _warmth._ It grew and built and Alois felt very uncomfortable. He wondered if only he could feel it since in front of him Claude didn't seem to be bothered by anything at all.

Then that hotness grew too much and Alois could feel sweat dripping down the back of his neck. His tongue moved back inside his mouth before he realized where the hotness had come from and he all but spat his tongue back out. The grip on his chin tightened further but Alois wanted to get away. He wanted water, or ice, or  _something._

"P-Professor Faustus!" He cried as he felt overcome with that heat. He gripped the other man's hands in his own in an attempt to get away but the grip on his chin tightened even further. With wide eyes, Alois stared with fear into topaz colored orbs that were very much calm.

"It's nearly over Alois." Claude's voice cooed sending a breeze through the room and Alois couldn't understand why but that pushed the offending warmth away leaving him refreshed before it came surging back tenfold.

" _Urgh!_ " He groaned, his entire body flushing and his knees growing weak. His hands still gripping onto Claude's was the only thing keeping him from falling, but a part of him wanted to fall, wanted to get away. Whatever this warmth was… Claude was causing it.

It felt like an entire eternity where he was doing nothing but  _roasting_. Was this what hell felt like? His insides burned with an invisible fire that made him want to tear at his skin to get to the flames and smother them. He felt suffocated, covered in hot white inferno and nothing was making it stop or go away.

"Almost there." Claude's voice whispered again, and  _again_ came the cool breeze. Alois whimpered at the temporary relief before he cried out in dismay as the fire returned stronger than before. He wished he could tell Claude to never speak so that there would be no respite from the fire and to just get it over and done with.

When he saw the other man's lips moving to speak, he readied himself. The breeze that swept over him was the coolest so far and he nearly cried at such reprieve and at the thought of the incoming inferno. But nothing came.

Alois stared wide eyed and his tongue back in his mouth at Claude who seemed to be breathing a little too heavily. The grip on his chin vanished and the blonde fell to the floor, his entire body crumpling and his head hitting the white carpet. His eyes drooped and his body ached. Over him he could hear Claude's voice. "Sleep Alois. You'll need it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it :D


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You've grown soft." Was all Claude had to say. "When a demon thinks he needs a reason to exist and actually goes to use a contract to achieve such a reason… why Michaelis, I thought I'd never see the day."
> 
> Sebastian sighed a bit disappointed. "Will you never learn Claude? Really?"
> 
> "Don't talk as if you know more than me Sebastian." Claude glared. "Just because you're a millennia older than me does not mean you are better in any other way."
> 
> "I never said I was." Sebastian returned. "I don't understand why you have to bring even between us as a challenge. I am only trying to help you."
> 
> Claude growled and stood in a rare show of slipping from him usually stoic mask. He was just as good as any demon, even Sebastian. That's why what Sebastian can do, Claude can do.
> 
> Even if that's attaining a chosen partner for life.

Ciel wondered what he would be doing exactly had he been at school right at this moment. Ideally he'd never skip school for anything as he did not want to have to suffer missing classes but the situation was somewhat dismal enough that he had been checked out of school and taken to his home for who knew how long. Idle thoughts kept him from focusing on the problem but his wayward feelings always drew back to revolving around his right eye.

His eyes that was now slowly turning purple as red bled into blue. It wasn't painful, heck it wasn't even bothering him too much. What was worrisome was that he could  _see_ it progressing and it didn't show any signs of stopping. If he had to face society with discolored eyes he didn't even want to think of what other people would say.

As the heir of the Phantomhive household and the future inheritor of Funtom. No matter how you looked at it his image was  _everything_. It would dictate if their toys would sell, it would dictate whether or not he would even be allowed to manufacture said toys. In business nothing was more important than what you appeared to be.

And if he appeared to be suffering heterchromia then there would be questions, questions he might not be comfortable with or would even know the answers to. So they had to get this fixed now, as in right bloody now.

The door to his bedroom opened and his favorite doctor, right after his mother, stepped inside. Angelina Dalles was his of his own biased opinion, the best in all of England. She could communicate well with her patients and was able to set you at ease, even when you were getting a shot. Alois, of all people, even agreed with Ciel when he said that when you needed help you approached his aunt, Ann because she would take care of you as if you were her fresh and blood.

Granted all doctors did that because that was their job, but… there was something about Aunt Ann.

"How are you holding up darling?" Was the first thing that escaped her mouth. Her red eyes strayed over his entire body before she held up a small flashlight and began the process of checking his eye for the nth time. When she was done she let out a frustrated sigh of disbelief. "Nothing. Still nothing!"

Ciel sympathized as he was even more frustrated at the moment seeing as this was his eye and all. "Do you think I should just wear glasses? Maybe it's just an infection."

"No, no." Ann said. "Glasses might bother it even more and it can't be an infection Ciel, it just can't. It would show up on my scans if it were but it didn't and it didn't in Rachel's either."

"Maybe it'll go away?" Ciel opted trying to be optimistic which was soundly odd. He was usually the broody and sulky pessimistic one here while his Aunt batted ridiculous suggestions just to lighten the mood. It seems family was a different matter all together even for doctors as she couldn't seem to find the humor in things.

Ann scoffed at her nephew and rubbed at the headache she could feel coming to her. "One can only hope."

"It'll be all right." Ciel murmured patting the woman's shoulder rather awkwardly before he settled back into his bed. Calming his aunt down was taking his thoughts off of his eye so regardless of whether or not her panic attack was necessary it was still slightly helpful.

"Do you feel like being alone for a moment? I'm just going to have a quick talk with your parents." Ciel wordlessly nodded his head. He could feel Aunt Ann staring at him but he remained as he was, stationary and unseeing. He heard the door opening then closing but stayed frozen.

Right now  _he_ was having his panic attack but someone kill him should he do it anything but inwardly. His father prided in having a son that could deal with anything thrown his way with a cool head and a sound mind. Ciel would not betray his father by pulling an Alois and screaming at the top of his lungs.

_Keep calm, keep calm, keep calm. Conceal it…_

It worked for a while that is until Ciel felt a cool breeze wash over him which didn't make any sense. The air conditioner was on, yes but for a breeze like that his window must have been opened or something. Pulling his eyelids apart, he took a brief once over his entire room and saw nothing.

Hmm, was anxiety capable of making you feel things that weren't actually there? Oh God, what if this was like sleep paralysis? But that didn't make sense because he wasn't asleep, he was just resting his eyes. There was no way he could have fallen asleep that fast!

His senses were going overload and he could feel that he was no longer alone. It was just like that first time and he couldn't believe just how coherent he was right now. Everything around him seemed bigger, and everything around him seemed darker. Ominous. Baleful and sinister. Something or someone was out there… just watching him.

And he couldn't bloody move.

He was susceptible, vulnerable and someone was there just a stab away from hurting him. Rationally he knew that this was just his mind making things up but as of now he was occupied with that bone chilling grip of irrational fear that had him desperately clawing for a way out.

_Keep calm, keep calm, keep calm._

Ciel needed to break out of this because if not he was going to start hurting himself. There was a heavy weight on his chest and he couldn't breathe. His lungs ached for air but slowly, oh so very  _slowly_  he was better losing it than getting it in. His head was swimming with the possibilities of what it was or who it was in the room with him.

It was big, big enough that it was cutting off his air supply and yet he couldn't  _see_ it. His eyes were staring straight up on the ceiling but he felt the warmth that now covered his chest. Ciel could feel his heart pounding so hard he half expected it to get out of his chest, but he doubted it happening since someone was  _obviously_  pressing down on it.

More panic overwhelmed him when his vision was taken from him, warmth now covering both his eyes but mostly was directed towards his right eye. A choked gasp wanted to escape from his throat but he still couldn't bloody move.

Then the warmth turned to heat and that was just plain unbearable.

Ciel wondered if he was going to die any time soon, and he also wondered how he was able to think of such nonsensical things on the precipice of sheer agony. He was delirious, maybe slightly hysterical. It felt like hours had passed, more so he could liken it to an eternity before he felt the oppressing weight on his chest disappear and he could  _move_.

Sitting up and gasping for air, Ciel pressed a hand to his chest the other to his eye. They both throbbed with pain and soreness as he took lungful after lungful of precious, precious air. He heard the sound of a door banging and he heard his mother's voice screaming and asking if he were all right.

Ciel's mind was too busy malfunctioning to even ponder what to answer her and so instead he gripped onto her tightly when she all but took away the breaths he had just gotten as she crushed him in her arms. His father was in the room as well as Aunt Ann who was standing at the foot of his bed, hands clasped over her own heart.

There were questions thrown but he couldn't find it in himself to answer them. With oxygen slowly occupying his brain he was able to calm down some and think just a bit rationally. He still questioned his sanity though as he felt as if there was someone else in the room with them.

Ciel wondered if it should bother him since he wasn't very much lucid right now, but he truly didn't feel any safer at all.

_Keep calm, keep calm, keep calm._

* * *

He stared at the unconscious boy for a moment. Boy yes because he was not yet of age. Claude still had two weeks to wait for Alois to finally turn seventeen and the inheritance could begin. It had been a very long three hundred years but now he had his beloved (he used such a term without meaning it) in hand. What was two more weeks?

Claude took a moment to take in his fill of the Trancy heir. He had reasons to believe that he was not like Sebastian. He would not be  _courting_ Alois because the blonde was his. End of story. There would be no need for wooing as the other had no choice but to simply obey and come to him.

He wondered if Alois even knew about the contract that had been written way before his time. To think that such a child was subjected to a deal that had been made three centuries ago without being an involved party was sort of sad. But Claude felt no such thing. He would not be sad because demons simply did not feel that way it wasn't even a possibility for them unless they wanted to  _act out_ such an emotion.

Deftly, he pondered over leaving Alois where he was on the floor but decided against it. Should the blonde recall what had happened between them then it would be better for him to believe that he had been in safe hands all along. It didn't really bother Claude if Alois liked him or not, it would just be more easy if the blonde came to him willingly. Less of a hassle that way.

In his arms, Alois weighed next to nothing and he had to be careful. It didn't take much to crush a human. The thought made Claude smile at his own personal joke. Alois Trancy would not be human for much longer. The process would take time and he hoped that it would happen after the boy's birthday hence his timing on checking whether it not it truly was Alois that was his for the taking.

The fact that Alois had reacted to him so quickly. It usually took time for the Faustian contract to appear because it took time for the demon to form bonds with the recipient. He didn't expect for it be so fast, but it seemed that it came with a price. Alois' strength had been sapped straight out of him and he wondered how strong that would make the blonde after the inheritance was complete.

Claude was almost a little excited since it's been a while since he's encountered another demon, not counting Sebastian who didn't like to play with him anymore. Dancing was not Sebastian's forte or so the other demon said but Claude believed otherwise. He's never had a partner as good as Sebastian but in time maybe Alois could prove to be more than worthy.

Settling him on the bed, Claude adjusted his glasses and once again stared at the boy. His skin was very pale, an after effect of losing so much energy in such a blast. Had he been kinder, Claude would have taken some little by little like Sebastian did every year. He doubted it worked very well since the Phantomhive boy wasn't sporting his own Faustian contract despite undergoing the process already when he had been younger.

It had been a coincidence that the two boys were familiar with one another but it made sense since they were both from well known families. In the underground most demons sought families like theirs for three sole reasons. The first was that they were the most likely to call for the superfluous requests which would result to outrageous prices from demons who would answer their calls. The second reason was that since they were from high up the social hierarchy they had more pride than most people and watching such  _nobles fall of their pedestals_ was quite the entertainment for a bored underling. The third reason was in association with the aforementioned price, it was absolute delicious to watch them choose between what they want and what they would lose.

As in Victor Trancy's case three hundred years ago, it had been a prosperous future where he would always be on top, never down in exchange for the soul of his greatest successor. Losing said successor would have brought the Trancy family great misfortune as who knows when the 'greatest successor' would come. It put everyone on edge, each parent wondering if it were their son or daughter that the demon spider would come for.

Claude continued his observation of Alois and reached a hand out to stroke away platinum blonde locks that had fallen over his face and neck. They were the Trancy blonde that was quite beautiful and almost made him seem ethereal. He traced his fingers over closed eyelids knowing that what lurked beneath them were astonishing pools of cerulean blue.

That certain feature had surprised Claude when he'd first seen them as he had expected the hereditary gray-blue eyes that came with the platinum blonde hair. As of the moment he was simply ignoring the difference in color, it didn't matter what type of blue they were they would shine with the same agonized pain and fear he had seen in Victor that time three hundred years ago.

Only this time Claude hoped that Alois would survive the initial pain and hurt he had to go through to finish the inheritance. If the blonde didn't survive then he had been mistaken in thinking Alois was his supposed chosen. He would have to come back for whoever it was next time. Of course there was a slight drawback as Alois was quite young and at this time of age it wasn't proper to have any heirs at the seemingly young age of sixteen. He'd have to wait for quite a few years for the Trancy's reincarnation or he could approach the second son Luka.

Claude had only seen the young boy in Alois' thoughts but he knew immediately that his chosen was not Luka. The hair was wrong and the eyes were wrong. When he had envisioned his promised it did not involve ginger though Luka did inherit the grey-blue slate eyes that Alois had missed.

But he knew it wasn't Luka, just like he knew that it was most probably Alois.

Moving away from the blonde he took in the peaceful expression and rested a hand on his chest. Alois' heart beat was steady which was a good thing. His skin, though pale, was warm and he would be feeling very hot in the next few days. Claude would keep a very good eye on him just to make sure nothing was going wrong.

He would also have to make sure that no one contact the boy's parents since he did not want them to know that the supposed 'greatest successor' was Alois himself. Of course should they refuse to give Alois to him then their business would die and their family would fall down.

Life was quite similar to a wheel, most people say, sometimes you're up but sometimes you're down. The Trancy family had found a way to cheat such a philosophy and managed to freeze life's wheel with them forever above. They would have to chose very well.

Claude wondered if the members of that particular family grew hearts over the years or would they give away a member of their family without a second thought.

Deeming Alois healthy enough Claude just had one more thing to check, but more so for his fun than anything else. Consciously lengthening the claw on his finger, he lifted Alois' pliant and rather boneless-at-the-moment wrist and neatly cut a line. Crimson red droplets dripped down the pale skin of his forearm and Claude lifted his now bloody claw to his lips.

Souls were delicious yet but it wasn't always that a demon had the luxury of feeding on one. Demons could feed on other things too, such as fear, anxiety, stress, and just about anything negative in the world. How Claude managed to pile blood into something negative he wasn't sure but it definitely suited his tastes.

Alois' blood was strong on his tongue, the flavor making him quite excited as he licked at the dripping liquid. He made sure not to take too much as he didn't want Alois growing weaker before the inheritance. As he told Sebastian, it wasn't like it could compare to what he had been able to taste of the Phantomhive boy, but Alois' blood was stirring something inside him that he had believed dormant for so long.

The copper liquid tasted slightly… twang-y in his mouth. There was no actual word for it, the closest he could truly get to it was twang-y which wasn't even a real word. It was heavy with all the secrets Alois had kept hidden from the world and it was heady with the pain and suffering he had gone through under the heavy veil of secrecy. People not believing him, his insecurity, his  _childish fears_. They had all built up inside of him, bottled up and simply churning over the years.

Alois was not like the Phantomhive. But he would do.

* * *

Sebastian felt Claude before he saw the other demon. Nevertheless he continued to move around the halls and into his room despite the very much judging stare on his back. When he was alone inside his quarters, the first thing he did was approach his office table where the other demon was comfortably sitting in his big chair. A chair that he had specifically chosen for his and only his use.

"I want my chair." Sebastian explained but the other demon did not move.

Instead Claude very much smiled at Sebastian and asked, "Where were you?"

Sebastian knew that Claude could answer his own question just as easily as if answering one plus one. But he wanted to know where the other demon was going with this and simply answered it truthfully. "I visited Ciel. I needed to make sure that everything was all right."

Claude's eyes flashed. "And how is the young Phantomhive heir?"

"Healing." Sebastian deadpanned. "It was less painful that it will be for Alois since I did the more merciful thing and introduced Ciel to the bonding when he was thirteen and now again when he's sixteen. When he turns seventeen he will most likely feel nothing during his inheritance."

"How… kind of you." Claude murmured to himself. He tapped the leather arms of Sebastian's chair. "I wouldn't have thought you'd fall to care so much for this human. Isn't he just payment Sebastian, like everybody else?"

Sebastian stared the other demon in the eye and auspiciously prevented himself from rolling his eyes. Such a human gesture was not something Sebastian would do in the presence of the other. "When you made your terms with Victor all those years ago you were doing so just to spite me weren't you?"

"If I were?" Claude asked.

"Then you're foolish." Sebastian said. "I told you Faustus. You were growing lonely. I knew that because I had felt the same way. It's the reason I told you about my contract with the Phantomhive family. I was not trying to make you jealous or flaunting my arrangement in any way. I was simply trying to suggest you finding someone to give you a reason to live."

"You've grown soft." Was all Claude had to say. "When a demon thinks he needs a reason to exist and actually goes to use a contract to achieve such a reason… why Michaelis, I thought I'd never see the day."

Sebastian sighed a bit disappointed. "Will you never learn Claude? Really?"

"Don't talk as if you know more than me Sebastian." Claude glared. "Just because you're a millennia older than me does not mean you are better in any other way."

"I never said I was." Sebastian returned. "I don't understand why you have to bring even between us as a challenge. I am only trying to help you."

Claude growled and stood in a rare show of slipping from him usually stoic mask. "I don't need your help."

"I think you do." Sebastian did not flinch from his position even when the only thing between him and the now pissed demon was a small mahogany office desk. "Alois may or may not be your chosen but if he is and Ciel goes through his inheritance and sees how miserable his friend is I will have the displeasure of having to off you in hopes of comforting my chosen."

Claude's eyes widened at that. "Since when do you follow orders like some dog?"

"I am a butler." Sebastian deadpanned. "We both are. Or have you forgotten how you've masqueraded as a servant for the Trancy family all those years ago? Have you truly forgotten?"

"No." Claude answered. "I still don't understand how you feel such a way for someone you haven't even had under contract. Demons do not bow down to humans, you of all should know that."

"I am not bowing down to a human." Sebastian argued. "I am simply chaining myself to my other half. He was made for me. I have waited for him for many years now, longer than you have and you should be lucky that it didn't take you half as long as I did for Alois to come."

Claude's eyes narrowed when he saw the knowing look on Sebastian's face and he grew tensed. "What are you implying Sebastian?"

"I'm just saying that I've been around longer than you." Sebastian answered. "I've interacted with the Trancy family many times in the past. I warn you to prepare yourself because it won't be easy for you or Alois. Especially Alois."

"Why?" Claude asked. "What do you know?"

Infuriating Claude even further, Sebastian smiled at the other demon and pressed a finger to his lips. "Now what kind of butler will you be if you can't find out even that?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well wasn't that interesting XD What does Sebastian mean 'prepare yourself'? If you guys can guess it then I'll absolutely love you! One of the hints is in Claude's section of this chapter. It's a little obvious if I do say so myself.
> 
> The sleep paralysis... well the last chapter sort of sent me into a lucid dream where I experienced it and for some reason that scene was meant to be for Alois but it worked better with Ciel. That scene basically wrote itself though so I can't really complain.


End file.
